iranian children with adhd and mental health of their mothers: the role of stress

Background: attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) is a psychiatric disorder that can result in stress for the mother, resulting in poor health. objectives: the current study, conducted in 2012, aims to assess stress among forty-six iranian mothers of adhd children (group 1) who were admitted to a psychiatric center in tehran with forty-six iranian mothers of normal children (group 2) in 2012. materials and methods: the child symptom inventory-4 (csi-4), the child behavior checklist (cbcl) and the parental stress index-short form (psi/sf) were completed. data was analyzed using the levene test and the independent t-test in spss version 18. results: with the exception of mood, adhd children had more problems in attention compared with normal children. as a result, mothers of adhd children had more stress compared with the controls. conclusions: adhd can impair a mother’s mental health by inducing stress. specific diagnostic and treatment programs should be designed and tailored for the mothers of adhd children in order to decrease stress.